


By Your Side

by overflow



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, the harbinger of sadness has decided to branch out from charmie to elioliver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-13 00:43:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14738900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overflow/pseuds/overflow
Summary: “I know you told me that you didn’t want to hear news about Elio,” Samuel says, and Oliver’s stomach drops at the sound of his name.  “But he’s been in an accident.”





	1. Chapter 1

The phone rings at on a Wednesday night, and Oliver groans from the couch, where he sits hunched over a stack of undergraduate essays with a red pen and a cup of coffee.  It’s the middle of March, and midterms are just wrapping up, leaving him with over a hundred mediocre papers to grade. He looks up at Paula. “Would you mind grabbing that?”

“We should just let it go to voicemail, it’s rude to call this late,” Paula mumbles, but she gets up and answers the phone anyway.  After a moment, she says, “It’s for you.”

“Can you just tell them I’m busy?” Oliver says, scribbling a comment next on the margins of the paper.

Paula tells them, and there’s a few moments of silence, and then she speaks again.  “It’s an emergency?”

Oliver’s eyes don’t leave the paper he’s grading.  “Who is it?”

“Who’s calling?” Paula asks.  Then, to Oliver, “Samuel Perlman?”

Oliver drops his pen, his head whipping over to look at her.  He stares for a moment, unable to move or speak, his body stiff, unwilling to move towards whatever news in on the phone.  He stands up slowly, repeating in his mind,  _ Elio, Elio, Elio,  _ over and over again.   _ Not him. _

He takes the phone from Paula and turns away from her.  “Hello?” he asks. His voice sounds distant, as if it’s coming from someone else.

“Oliver,” Samuel says.  He sounds breathless, exhausted.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asks.

“I know you told me that you didn’t want to hear news about Elio,” Samuel says, and Oliver’s stomach drops at the sound of his name.  “But he’s been in an accident.”

“An accident?” Oliver echoes.

“A car accident.  His friend was drunk, and Elio got in the car with him anyway, it was—“

“Is he dead?” Oliver interrupts.  He couldn’t care less about Elio’s irresponsibility, his brashness; he  _ knows  _ these things about Elio, knows that he doesn’t fully understand the concept of consequences, and he doesn’t care about any of it.  He won’t fault him for it, not tonight.

“No,” Samuel says, sighing.  “No, no, thank god, but… he’s hurt.”

“Hurt?” Oliver repeats, gripping the counter tight, unable to reconcile the relief that Elio is still alive with the dread, the horrible anger that consumes him when he thinks about Elio having to experience any pain at all.

“We don’t know everything yet, but… well, I thought you should know that this is going on.”

“Are you in Milan?” Oliver asks.

“Crema.  We came for Elio’s spring break.  He’s been so stressed, with college decisions, we thought it would be nice for him to relax, and now—“ Samuel’s voice breaks and he’s silent save for uneven, shaky breaths.

“I need to see him,” Oliver says.  He needs Elio to know that he cares, needs Elio to know that he hasn’t forgotten about him, that he never will.  He imagines Elio, hurting and doped up on pain medication, teary eyed and confused, hearing that Oliver knew about the accident but didn’t bother to come visit him.  It’s a painful thought, one that he can’t allow to become reality.

“Of course.  He’d be so happy if you came, he misses you terribly,” Samuel says, effectively knocking the wind out of Oliver.  “Although, I don’t really know how he’ll react. He’s not… he’s not himself, right now.”

“What?” Oliver asks.  “What does that mean?”

There’s some commotion on the other end of the line, Italian words passed back and forth too quickly for Oliver to translate, and then Samuel comes back to the phone.  “I have to go, sorry.”

“Wait—what do you mean he’s not himself?”

But Samuel has hung up the telephone, and Oliver is left listening to the loud, relentless sound of the dial tone.  When he looks up, Paula is staring at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Elio—“ Oliver starts, and the cuts himself off, shaking his head.

“Who?”

“I need to go to Italy,” Oliver says.  “Now.”

Paula seems to sense the urgency of this.  “Alright. You go pack. I’ll call the airport.”

Oliver nods, pacing towards the bedroom.  He stops at the door and turns to look at Paula.  “Thank you,” he says.

She nods at him, already on the phone.

Oliver begins to pack a suitcase, struggling to understand exactly what he needs to bring for something like this.  How long will he be there? A week? Probably more, if Elio’s hurt as badly as it sounds. And who is he kidding? He can’t just have a week with Elio.  He has to have him for a while if he’s to have him at all. Where will he go? Probably nowhere fancy. The hospital, the house. While he looks through his clothes, he realizes that Elio is probably wearing a hospital gown right now.

He’s probably lying in a hospital bed, all sorts of tubes sticking into his body, breathing for his lungs and beating for his heart.  A few--or a lot, or one, or none--casts coating his limbs, bandages around his torso and his head, bruises coating his beautiful face.  Oliver desperately wishes that Samuel had just told him exactly what was wrong, how Elio had been hurt.  _ He’s not himself.   _ That could mean anything.

Did he break his neck?  Is he paralyzed? Brain-dead?  Can he breathe on his own? Has his face been cut up, is he horribly disfigured?

Are his hands damaged?  Were they amputated, or crushed?  Will he be able to play piano again?  It would kill Elio to lose music. The thought alone brings tears to Oliver’s eyes.  Whenever he thinks of Elio, he thinks of him sitting at the piano, playing something so beautiful Oliver thought that God himself would come down from heaven just to clap.  Would he lose that?

And why did Samuel have to get off the phone so quickly?  There must have been some sort of emergency. Are things still getting worse?  Is Elio still in danger of dying? Is the damage already done? God, please let it be done.  Please don’t make Elio suffer any further. It’s enough. He’s had enough.

Is this the punishment Elio gets for sleeping with him?  For being with another man? Is this some sort of divine retribution?  Because if it is, Oliver wishes he were the one punished instead. Instead of sweet, innocent Elio.  Seventeen year old Elio, barely more than a child, still floundering and fumbling and finding himself--why should  _ he  _ be the one punished?  Oliver was the adult, Oliver is the one who knew what he was doing, Oliver should be the one punished.

Paula interrupts his thoughts.  “There weren’t any available flights until tomorrow morning.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver says, without pausing to think.  Is it okay? There’s nothing to be done, so it has to be.

But what if Elio dies before he gets there?  What if Elio dies thinking that Oliver didn’t care enough to show up?

He needs to shut these thoughts out.  They’re not helping.

“Who is Elio?” Paula asks, sitting down on the bed.  “And what happened to him?”   


“He’s... the son of the professor I interned for last summer.”

“Ah,” Paula says.  “I remember that. You were close with him, then?”

_ Close with him.   _ As if it could be summed up that simply.  Although, on second thought, couldn’t it be?  That’s what they were. Close.

And now they’re so distant, and Elio’s dying halfway across the world without him.  Oliver hasn’t spoken to him in  _ months _ , he needed to move on and yet--how could he do that to him?  It’s so wrong, so selfish, he sees that now.

“Yes,” Oliver decides.  “We were very close.”

“Is he... alright?”   


Oliver sighs, buries his head and his hands, and resists the urge to snap at her.  “No. He was in a car accident. And he’s badly hurt.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry.  Will he be alright?”

“His father had to get off the phone quickly, I think something had happened.  So I didn’t get to ask.” Oliver pauses for a second. “Even if I did, I don’t know if he would even know the answer.”

“God.  That’s awful.”

Oliver nods.

“If you’re going to be missing work, you should call in and let them know.”

Oliver looks up at her.  How could she so calculated?  So unemotional? Perhaps he’d be better off if he was more like her, though.  It’s what his parents would want from him. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll do that right now.”

He calls into work and numbly tells them that there is a family emergency and he’ll be out of work for the next couple weeks.  No, he doesn’t know exactly how long. It’s a... relative who’s been injured badly, perhaps fatally. He has to go and see him.

His boss is disgruntled, but he can’t exactly tell him no.

Oliver expects to sleep horribly, if he sleeps at all.  But he’s out as soon as his head hits the pillow, as if this news about Elio has sucked all of the energy out of him. When he wakes, he has to head the airport immediately.  He takes a double-dose of ambien on the plane, knowing that if he doesn’t he’ll spend the next eight hours ruminating about what condition Elio may be in.

Annella picks him up at the airport, which is both surprising and relieving.  Surprising, because he thought she’d like to spend time with Elio. Relieving, because it must mean that Elio will live.  If he was still in danger of dying, Annella would never leave his side.

She looks awful.  Hair a mess, bags under her eyes, shoulder hunched and jaw tense.  Her eyes are red.

She hugs him immediately.  She’s so small, he notices for the first time, so birdlike.  So much like Elio.

“How are you?” she asks.

“I--” he stutters, choking off. He doesn’t know.  “Elio,” he says, the name sounding like a tragedy, like an answer, like a whole story that needs no surrounding context, no explanation or excess words.   _ Elio--  _ it’s enough.

She seems to understand, because she nods.  “I’ll take you to him.”

They get in the car silently, and they drive silently too.  Oliver’s afraid to ask any questions. Now that he can have the answers, he no longer wants them.  But he feels inconsiderate saying nothing, asking nothing.  _ I’m sorry,  _ perhaps?  But he doesn’t know what he’s sorry for.  And clearly Elio is not dead, at least not yet, and evidently, most likely not in the near future.

“Is he in a lot of pain?” he asks, because, for some reason, that seems safe.

“Yes,” Annella says quietly.  “Yes, it seems like it.”

Oliver doesn’t know why he thought he could handle the answer to that question.  He wishes he could take Elio’s place, take his pain. He’s the one that deserves it.

It takes a while to get from Milan to Crema, but it’s still light outside when they get there.  Crema looks just about the same. Oliver almost wishes it looked different. He wishes that there was a clear before and after.  He wishes Crema would change because Elio changed. He wishes his home would be altered by Elio’s accident. He wishes the world would acknowledge Elio’s pain.

Annella pulls into the driveway at the villa.  It’s surreal to be back here, makes Oliver shaky and weak-kneed, as if he’s interacting with a ghost, as if he’s walking through some land he had been banished from.

“I thought you were taking me to Elio,” Oliver says.  “I don’t need to unpack, we can go straight to the hospital.”

Annella blinks.  “He’s not in the hospital.  He’s here.”

Oliver stares at her.  If he’s already home, he must not be that terribly injured.  Perhaps Samuel played up the injury on the phone to get Elio to come.  Oliver could see Elio convincing him to do that. Or perhaps the accident happened days before Samuel told Oliver.  Or perhaps Elio is definitely dying, and they’ve taken him back home to be more comfortable. Either way, he feels as though he’s been lied to.

“Come on inside.  Maybe he’s awake.”

Oliver follows her inside on shaky legs.  

Samuel is in his office when Oliver walks in, and he immediately stands up and gives him a hug.  He asks a lot of questions that Oliver doesn’t quite hear but manages to answer robotically enough.  Eventually, Samuel relents. “You probably would like to see Elio.”

“Yes.  If that’s okay.”

Samuel nods.  “Well, we’ll see if he’s awake.  If he’s sleeping, you’ll have to wait to talk to him.”   


“He’s--he’s been up?” Oliver asks, breathless.

“Yes, a little bit here and there.”

Well, that at least rules out brain-dead.

The three of them climb up the stairs together, Samuel in front of Oliver.  He opens the door a tiny bit and talks to Elio through that tiny crack. Oliver can barely see into the room, but he can tell that the curtains are drawn and the room is completely dark.

“Elio,” Samuel says, his voice soft and gentle. “Are you awake?”

Elio gives a grunt.  And it’s--it’s just a grunt, ugly, really, but Oliver thinks it may be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.  Elio’s alive. Elio’s awake.

“You have a visitor, darling,” Annella says.

“Tell them to leave,” Elio say, deadpan.  His voice is slightly muffled by a pillow, but it’s still  _ there,  _ still present.  Oliver hasn’t heard his voice in months, but he still remembers it so distinctly, could still recognize it anywhere.  Hearing it makes his heart race.

“I think you’ll change your mind when we tell you who it is,” Annella says.  The playfulness in her voice sounds painfully forced.

Elio is silent for such a long time that it becomes painful.

Eventually, Oliver speaks.  “Elio, it’s me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Oliver waits for a response, but Elio says nothing.  He waits for permission to enter the bedroom, but none is given.  He waits for any indication that he is wanted in this house, but he receives none.

Eventually, Oliver decides to walk in anyway.  Samuel and Annella step out of the way quickly, both of them retreating down the stairs.  Oliver opens the door, and it creaks loudly.

“I didn’t tell you to come in,” Elio says, his words slow and slurred.

“Do you not want me to?” Oliver asks, trying not to let the rejection sting.  He’s hurt, Oliver reminds himself, he’s in pain. He’s _not himself._

“No.”

“Well, I flew all this way to see you.”

Elio takes a while to respond, and there’s a large gap between each word, as if he has to think very hard to land on them.  “I’m not very exciting.”

“Let me just--” Oliver opens the door and walks in.  He keeps his eyes downcast, afraid to look at Elio, afraid to see what type of horror lies in front of him.  The entire trip over, all Oliver could think about was Elio’s injuries, playing some guessing game as how exactly he was hurt.  But now that he’s here, able to look at him, it’s the last thing he wants to do. He thought that once he knew exactly how Elio was injured, he would feel better.  But a part of him wants to turn around, go back to New York, and never find out more about this situation.

That’s the selfish part of him.  That’s the part of himself that he hates.

“If you’re in here, please close the door.  The light gives me a headache.”

“Of course,” Oliver obliges, closing the door immediately.  He curses himself for having caused Elio anymore pain than he has already experienced.

He looks around the room, looking everywhere but at Elio.  On the desk are multiple bottles of medication, an ice-pack that’s mostly melted, and some sort of brace that Elio seems to have taken off.  In the corner, there’s a wheelchair. Oliver’s heart stops as he sees that. He couldn’t-it couldn’t possibly. Samuel and Annella would have told him.  He wouldn’t be upstairs. He wouldn’t be home from the hospital, he wouldn’t be -

And yet, here he is.  Here the wheelchair is.

Oliver refuses to jump to conclusions.  He refuses to think about how Elio was always bouncing around, always moving, running everywhere, never standing still. He refuses to think about how he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore, wouldn’t be able to ride his bike, dance, swim.  He refuses to think of any of that.

“How are you feeling?” Oliver asks hesitantly, looking at the wall.

“Like shit,” Elio says.  “You should probably just hang out with my parents.  I’m no fun right now.”

Something about the sense of tragedy in Elio’s voice, that same tragedy when he told him _I know nothing, Oliver,_ all those months ago, brings Oliver back to his senses.   _Stop being a fucking pussy,_ he thinks, _Elio’s the one who’s hurt, not you._

He drags his eyes across the room and to Elio.  He doesn’t know if the sight is better or worse than what he was expecting, can’t say if he’s relieved or disappointed.  The only thing that he knows is that he’s horrified.

Elio looks completely destroyed.  His left leg is covered with bandages, a line from the middle of his calf all the way up past his boxers.  There’s a cast on his arm that starts just above the hem of his short-sleeved shirt and continues down to his fingers.   _His fingers,_ Oliver thinks painfully.  He can’t play piano. His outlet, the way that he thought and expressed and even spoke, is gone.  That astonishing talent, that beauty that only Elio could produce, gone, at least until he recovers. That’s what he could have helped him through this pain.  Music always helped Elio when he was stressed. But now he must go through this without it.

It brings Oliver to tears, but he quickly blinks them back.   _Keep your shit together,_ he thinks, _You need to be there for him._

Out of concern, or out of some type of morbid curiosity, Oliver walks closer.  He slowly, carefully, sits down on the bed next to Elio. His head is wrapped in bandages.  He has two black eyes, and the entire right side of his face is coated in bruises. They start at his forehead, probably above his hairline, and they continue past his jaw and neck to under his shirt.  There’s a large cut slicing the center of his forehead down to the outside of his left eyebrow, and another one from his right cheekbone down to his chin, both cuts lined with black stitches. Other smaller cuts are scattered alone his face and neck--they seem to be everywhere, really.  Everywhere that he can see at least, which isn’t much, considering how much of his body is covered by casts and gauze and clothing and blankets.

The one thing that is slightly relieving is that Elio has wiggled his toes and ankles a few times since Oliver has walked in. So far, he's been able to rule at paralyzed and brain-dead, his two biggest fears, but Oliver still doesn't feel any better.

“Did you hear what I said?” Elio asks.

Did he?  He doesn’t remember.  The words that they spoke only moments prior seem so far away.  It all seems so unimportant in the face of these injuries. Oliver has to think to remember what they were.

 _I’m no fun right now._ Yes, that was it.  Typical Elio. Self-deprecating at best, outright self-loathing at worst.

“You know I don’t care about that,” Oliver says.

“Do I?” Elio asks.  “Why did you even come?  I didn’t ask you to.”

“I--you’re hurt,” Oliver says, shocked by Elio’s words, shocked by the state of him, shocked that they’re even together right now.  How did this happen? And why did it have to happen in this way?

When Oliver imagined reuniting with Elio, it was never like this.  Elio was always healthy. Healthy, and beautiful, and happy. The way he’s meant to be, the way he deserves to be.  Not like this. No one was in pain in all those fantasies. Nobody had to hurt.

“Yes.  And this is reason for you to come because...?”

“You _know_ why,” Oliver says, exasperated.  He just wants to help Elio, to comfort him, but Elio seems hell-bent on making this an uncomfortable experience for the both of them.

“Well, maybe it’s just a convenient time for you to enjoy the Italian weather.”

Oliver scoffs and rolls his eyes.  “You’re acting like a child.” Oliver instantly regrets his words, just like he regrets ever telling Elio to grow up.  

Elio is quiet for so long that Oliver thinks he may have fallen back asleep.  Then, he finally speaks: “Don’t call me that.”

And, because Elio is hurt, far beyond what either of them can handle, Oliver agrees.  “Okay. I won’t.”

“I’d like it better if you left,” Elio says.  “You don’t need to be here out of--guilt, or pity, or whatever.  I know you don’t care about me, so I’d appreciate if you didn’t pretend to.”

“I don’t _care_ about you?” Oliver asks, past incredulity and actually angry now.  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Well, it’s not like you’ve called.  Or written. Or _anything._ How’s the wedding planning going?”  Elio keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t move a muscle in his entire body, but his voice is full of energy, sharp and venomous.

“Jesus, Elio, what the fuck?” Oliver says, nearly yelling now.  “You know--you _know_ I care, otherwise I wouldn’t fucking be here, I wouldn’t be fucking sitting here in the dark, I wouldn’t have booked a plane flight the moment your dad called me, I wouldn’t have taken time off work!  How the fuck, after everything, can you possibly--” Oliver cuts himself off, realizing that Elio has been saying something.

“Please stop shouting,” Elio whispers frantically.  “Please, it really hurts.”

Oliver shuts his mouth immediately, hating himself.  He came here to comfort Elio, to be with him in his time of need, and all he is doing is causing him more pain.  “I’m sorry.”

Elio’s eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes clenched shut.  There is a tear in the corner of his left eye, and Oliver hesitantly reaches out and touches his with his thumb, drying it.  Elio’s breath shutters.

“Can you look at me?” Oliver asks.

“No,” Elio says.

Oliver sighs.  He moves on the bed, closer to Elio, who lies completely still.  He wants to touch him, wants to embrace him. Maybe through physical touch, Oliver can absorb all of Elio’s pain, and he can show him that he loves him now, that he loved him then, and that he’ll love him always.  “Can you sit up?”

“It’ll hurt my back,” Elio mumbles.

 _His back?_ That’s injured, too?  Oliver thought he’d seen everything, and yet, there was more.  A new place where Elio was hurting.

“Alright, you don’t have--”

But Elio has already propped himself up on his one working elbow and is working his way to a seated position, wincing and grimacing as he does so.  His eyes open for a second, seem to focus on nothing, and then snap shut again. “Fuck,” Elio says, clearly suffering.

“If it hurts you--” Oliver says, unsure what  to do. Should he grab Elio by the arms and pull him to a seated position?  Would that hurt him more? Should he place a hand on his shoulder and bring him back down?  But Elio clearly wants to sit. By the time Elio’s finished, he’s heaving, and Oliver hates himself for ever asking Elio to move.

God, he needs to get a handle on this quickly, or he’s going to hurt Elio more than he helps him.  But he’s overwhelmed, and time seems to be moving much faster than his brain can, and god, he’s fucking failing him.  He’s failing Elio, who deserves nothing but the best from everyone, who worshipped Oliver, and who was ultimately heartbroken.  He failed him once, and he’s doing it again.

“Are you okay?”

Elio licks his lips.  “Um,” he says. He’s strangely stiff.

Oliver scooches forward on the bed so that his knees are by Elio’s hips.  Slowly, he brings his arms around Elio’s sides, letting them hover there without touching.  “Can I...?”

“What?” Elio looks genuinely confused.

Oliver then touches Elio, and Elio seems to understand.  Elio’s movements are slow and clumsy, like he doesn’t quite understand what’s happening or where he is, so Oliver guides him into the embrace.

Elio can only hug up with one arm; the one in the cast lies against his chest, creating a barrier between him and Oliver.  In Oliver’s arms, Elio is stiff and unmoving. Because of his injuries, or because he’s uncomfortable with Oliver now, Oliver doesn’t know, but it hurts.  It almost corrupts the memory of the last summer, makes him unsure of everything that happened between him.

“I missed you so much,” Oliver says.  He needs Elio to know this. He needs Elio to know that he mattered, and not just after he got into an accident, but always.

Elio begins to sniffle.  After only a few weeks together almost a year ago, Oliver still knows Elio so well, can still read him like a book.  And he can tell that he’s trying to hold back tears. “You never called.”

Oliver doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to excuse that. He rubs his hands up and down Elio’s back.  The muscles are tight, almost the entirety of his back in spasm, and Oliver can almost feel the pain through his hand.  “Elio,” Oliver says. “Can’t you--can you please open your eyes and look at me?

“I can’t.”

“Please, Elio.  Just... I just want eye contact.  Just for a second, I’ve missed you so much, I always thought about what it would be like when we... saw each other again.”

Elio shudders.  “No, Oliver, I _can’t.”_ He sounds horribly sad.  “There was some... permanent damage.”

Oliver’s heart thuds, and he can hear the blood rushing through his ears.  “What kind of... permanent damage?”

Elio pulls out of the hug, leans back like he’s going to look at Oliver, but his eyes fall somewhere else.  “Can’t you tell?”

“No,” Oliver says, confused.  For the most part, Elio seems... fine.  Injured, yes, terribly so, but there’s nothing visibly more horrendous than anything else.  Nothing that intuitively seems unfixable.

“Oliver,” Elio says.  “I can’t see.”


	3. Chapter 3

“He’s fucking blind?” Oliver demands, glaring at Samuel, who is sitting on the living room couch and reading.

When Elio told Oliver, he stayed with him, unable to speak and shaking with fury.  What could he say? What could he say to Elio, who had just been so horribly betrayed by a world he had done nothing but give kindness and beauty to.  And what could he say to anyone else who inhabited the world that had just forsaken him?

Eventually, Elio slumped back down onto the pillows, complaining that it was too painful for him to sit up for very long.  Oliver wasn’t able to say anything even then, wasn’t able to comfort him. Elio deserves nothing but kindness, and Oliver couldn’t give him that.  The world couldn’t give him that.

Once Elio fell asleep, Oliver immediately ran down the stairs to Samuel, as if this was somehow his fault.

“Yes,” Samuel says simply.  Why is he so unemotional about this?  Doesn’t he care? His son is blind, and he’s sitting downstairs, reading a book.

“How does that happen?” Oliver spits out.

“There was damage to his optic nerve.  Is he sleeping?”

“Yes,” Oliver exhales.  Oliver lips his lips, looks away and then back.  He wants to hit something. “He got in a car with a fucking drunk driver,” Oliver says, leaning forward against the back of one of the chairs.  “You never taught him that that was a bad idea?”

“He knows that it’s a bad idea.  He can work that out for himself,” Samuel says, unaffected.  “He did it anyway. He’s a kid, he makes mistakes.”

Oliver shakes his head.  That’s not enough. “So you never actually told him.  You never had any fucking rules for him. None. And then something like this happens.  That’s what happens when you don’t actually raise your fucking kid.”

Samuel’s face twitches.  He’s visibly angry, but his voice is calm.  “You’re upset right now.”

“Why aren’t you?” Oliver yells.  “You-”

“Don’t wake him up,” Samuel hisses.

Oliver grits his teeth, and begins to whisper-shout.  “Why aren’t you upset? You’re his father! He is permanently blind and in horrendous pain and you’re just down here reading a book!”

Samuel blinks.  “What do you want me to be doing?  I went downstairs so that you could speak to him privately.  And now he’s sleeping.”

“What if he needs help with something?”

“He’ll call us.”

“What if--”

“Oliver.  I know how to take care of my son.”

Oliver takes a breath.  “Do you? Because it doesn’t even seem like you care.”

Samuel blinks slowly, lights a cigarette.  “When Elio got to the hospital, the doctors thought he would die of head trauma.  They told Annella and I that we should say goodbye, because he wasn’t going to make it through the night.”  He takes a breath, looks away. “But he lived. Then the doctors told us that he most likely had brain damage and would have severe cognitive impairments for the rest of his life.  But he didn’t. He had brain injuries, but they will heal.”

Oliver gapes.  The thought had crossed his mind, of course, that Elio would not live through his.  That even if he did, he would be horribly brain damaged or paralyzed. But to hear it from Samuel, to hear that there was a time where that was an actual possibility--no, not a possibility, a probability.  There was a time when multiple doctors thought that Elio would die from this, and were so convinced of this that they told his parents to say goodbye.

He feels as if someone has reached inside of him, grabbed at all of his major organs, and twisted.

“I’m grateful that Elio is alive,” Samuel says.  “And I am grateful that he is still Elio. And you should be too.  Of course I am upset that he’s blind, but I would rather have a blind son than a dead son.  And it doesn’t help him for us to yell and scream about it. If we make a big deal about feeling sorry for him, it’ll only upset him more.  It’ll only give him a negative outlook on the whole thing.”

Oliver stares at him.  He knows that Samuel is right, but he wants someone to be mad at.  He wants someone to blame. He needs, somehow, to take control of this situation.

“I still don’t think he should be upstairs by himself,” Oliver says.

“We check on him every thirty minutes.  We don’t want to crowd him. He doesn’t like us being in there constantly, he wants to be by himself.  You know how he gets.”

Oliver does know.   _ Hermit Elio,  _ he used to think, for the first half of that summer.  He didn’t understand why he spent so much time alone. With all the charisma and friends in the world, why was he introverted to the point of reclusiveness?

Oliver knows, now.  He understands, now.  Elio was waiting. Waiting for someone he cared about, for someone he connected to.  Oliver was that someone. And then he left him. And then Elio got into a car accident, and Oliver didn’t protect him.

His anger towards Samuel doesn’t dissipate, but it redirects towards himself. For failing Elio in this tremendous way, for yelling at Samuel as if he was somehow to blame.  Samuel, who had just watched his son nearly die, who raised that beautiful creature that Oliver loved so much--how could he get mad at Samuel? 

Oliver exhales, and slumps down on the couch next to Samuel.  He needs more information, so he asks for it.

Apparently, Elio and his friend Riccardo had gone out partying to celebrate the first night of spring break, and both got completely drunk.  Riccardo, who’s parents are strict, was too afraid to call anyone to bring them home, in fear that it may draw attention to his night out drinking.  He convinced Elio that he was sober enough to drive (he had admitted this tearfully at the hospital, when they all still thought that Elio was going to die), and they both got going.  He blew straight through a red light, and a car hit them at fifty miles per hour on the passenger side, where Elio was sitting.

Riccardo was mostly fine.  A slight concussion, a sprained wrist--both will be healed within weeks.  Elio, however, was destroyed. His back was broken as well, bent at some strange angle when the cars collided, leaving him with several broken vertebrae and herniated discs.  He broke his arm in two places. The most terrifying were the head injuries, which, according to Samuel, if you asked Elio, he wouldn’t even know what exactly they were. He had a depressed skull fracture, which was the cause of most of the panic, as it caused a hemorrhage in his brain.  He had an extremely severe concussion and an edema, and such severe and extensive damage to his optic nerve that it even shocked the doctors.

The accident was over a week ago, now.  Samuel can’t give Oliver the exact date, as it’s all been a blur.  He was in the hospital for a little while after, lying miserably uncomfortable on a cot, until he successfully cried his way into going home, against doctors suggestions.  Samuel called Oliver a few days after Elio came home.

He says he’s sorry, but Oliver doesn’t understand it.  Why wasn’t he called as soon as Elio was admitted to the hospital?

Oliver can’t say anything in response to all of this information.  There’s nothing to say, and even if there was, he wouldn’t be able to say it.  He’s too overwhelmed--just when he thought he had a handle on how Elio was hurt, there was more.  He’s afraid to ask how long and difficult the recovery will be, so he doesn’t. He supposes he’ll learn as he goes.

Seeming to sense Oliver’s discomfort, Samuel says, “If you’d like, you can go up and stay with him while he sleeps.  I’m sure you’ve missed being around him.”

Oliver opens his mouth, but can’t figure out exactly what he wants to say.  Impulsively, he says, “I haven’t done right by him, and I’m sorry.”

Samuel looks into his eyes.  “I forgive you, of course. But you need to tell him that, not me.”

Oliver nods, stands up from the couch.  “Um, not right now though, right?”

Samuel scoffs, shakes his head.  “Of course not now. He’s sleeping.  Just go sit with him, I know you want to.  We’ll wake him up in a few hours for dinner.”

Elio is sleeping, looking far more peaceful than he did when Oliver spoke to him earlier.  Oliver kneels on the bed slowly so as to not disturb him, and leans over to look at his face.  He looks just about the same as he did last summer, save for the bruises coating his forehead and eyes and the cut on his jawline.  Asleep like this, Elio is still that seventeen-year-old from the previous summer, that lithe thing that never stopped moving, that spoke in half-truths and was always trying to prove something to Oliver.  He’s still that same kid that snapped at Oliver and lied to him and tested him and still pulled him into his orbit all the same, he’s still that sensitive, transparent teenager who would make Oliver regret half the things he said because every word seemed to hurt him.

Oliver always felt like he was hurting him.  He always felt like he was breaking him, and he didn’t know how to stop.  If he said one word to him, it hurt him, and if he said nothing, that hurt him too.  To kiss him was to hurt him, to corrupt him, but rejecting him caused him just as much pain.  So Oliver tried to compromise, tried to do what he could for him. Tried to give him what he wanted when it was reasonable and to deny him when it wasn’t, and most of all, he tried to protect him.

He couldn’t.

Oliver always thought that he would be the one that would destroy Elio.  But it wasn’t him. It was the world. Or it was Elio’s friend, who drove drunk.  Or it was Elio himself, who stupidly got in the car with him. God, why would he do that?  He’s smarter than that.

But is he more responsible?  Is he more realistic? No. Oliver’s always known that, and he can’t turn his back on that trait of Elio’s now.

Still, Oliver can’t shake the feeling that this is somehow his fault.  That everything they did together somehow led to this accident. If Oliver hadn’t had sex with Elio, maybe Elio would have known better than to get in the car.  Maybe Elio wouldn’t have been so damaged from the summer together that he would so carelessly put his life at risk in that way. Or maybe it was that Oliver wasn’t there.  Maybe if he’d called, if he’d written, he could have prevented this somehow...

He doesn’t know how.  He doesn’t know exactly why.  But Oliver has to blame himself.  He can’t blame Elio.

Hesitantly, Oliver gently touches Elio’s face.  He had spent so long trying to remember what his face felt like, and here it is, right in front of it.  To think that less than twenty-four hours ago he thought he would live the rest of his life without ever seeing Elio again.  He thought he would be able to block out the memory and move on.

How naive.  How stupid. All he needs is a second in Elio’s company to remember just how enrapturing he is.  All he needs is a second of touch to know that he’ll never be able to be without him.

The only thing that makes this touch different are the bruises.  They make his skin feel tender, and swell up his face so that it’s puffy and round, rather than sharp and delicate.  Oliver can only imagine the physical pain he must be in, as well as the emotional pain. He can barely keep track of all the different types of injuries, but he knows that every inch in the right side of his body must feel horrible, and the pain in his head is probably agonizing.

Elio’s strong, Oliver realizes abruptly.  He’s sleeping and crying and snapping at everyone, but he’s here, he’s alive, against all odds.  He made it this far in that type of pain, he made himself live. He’s handling the pain. He’s much stronger than Oliver has ever been or will be.  Behind that delicate exterior is a strength that Oliver hadn’t realized, but now admires.

Oliver places his thumb over one of Elio’s eyelids, tries to imagine how Elio will adjust to his new life.  In some ways, Elio is mature, wise beyond his years, and in some ways, he’s incredibly childish. When he’s no longer overwhelmed by the physical pain that he’s in, when the urge to sleep no longer eclipses all else, how will Elio face the emotional pain?  How will he face his new life?

Will he be able to?  Oliver has all the faith in the world in Elio, but he doesn’t know if Elio would be able to handle this.

Oliver could, maybe.  So why wasn’t the burden placed on him?  Why did Elio have to be tortured in this way?  Oliver is the one who deserves it.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Oliver whispers.  “You deserve so much better than what I’ve given you.”

Elio doesn’t stir.

Oliver doesn’t know what to do.  He feels like he needs to care for Elio in some way, but he doesn’t know how.  There must be something he can do to make this easier, he can’t just sit idly.

Eventually, he lies down next to Elio.  He doesn’t touch him, is too afraid to hurt him.  He just lies there and closes his eyes, knowing that they are both there, breathing next to each other in the same bed.


End file.
